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On 29 March, The UK in a Changing Europe published Article 50 two years on, summarising what has happened during the Article 50 process, where we are now, and what might happen in the future. Here, its director Anand Menon offers his own view of how Brexit has been handled since Article 50 was invoked by the government, and offers an insight into some of the topics contained in the report.

Two years on. So little progress made. As metaphors go, watching parliament hold a series of eight votes and fail to muster a majority on any of them was not too bad at all.

And yet, and yet. For all the outward signs of chaos emanating from Westminster, things are moving. It was never going to be easy for MPs to ‘take control’ of Brexit, if only because all they control even now is the parliamentary diary. Parliament isn’t set up to make it easy for MPs to both set their own agenda and make decisions.

Moreover, it strikes me as slightly misguided to criticise the House of Commons for failing to come to a clear decision on Brexit. For on this if on nothing else, our MPs represent us faithfully. Like the public at large, they are deeply divided on the question of leaving the European Union, and therefore – again like us – it is not clear which if any of the possible outcomes a majority of them might agree on. Continue reading →

The latest issue of Monitor, the Constitution Unit’s regular newsletter, was published today. When the previous issue came out in November, the lack of a withdrawal agreement was a cause of great uncertainty. Four months later, a deal has been reached with the EU, but it has failed to gain parliamentary support and what will happen on 29 March remains an open question. As our editorial team says below, the current crisis is testing our constitution on multiple fronts and the strain is starting to show. This post is the opening article from Monitor 71; you can download the full issue (as well as past editions) here.

This Monitor appears less than three weeks before the date set for the UK to leave the European Union. Remarkably, the form that Brexit will take – indeed, whether it will happen at all – remains highly uncertain. The coming days and weeks will be crucial in determining the UK’s future direction. Brexit has placed the UK’s political and constitutional system under great strain. That is partly because it is so contested – dividing the main parties internally and risking alienation between the popular majority who backed Leave in 2016 and the parliamentary majority who opposed it. The 2017 general election added to these challenges by resulting in a minority government. Meanwhile, the political task is immensely complex and the stakes exceptionally high.

This strain has manifested itself in numerous ways. The Independent Group (TIG), created on 18 February (see page 12) and currently including 11 former Labour and Conservative MPs, is the largest breakaway from the main parties since the ‘Gang of Four’ founded the Council for Social Democracy – precursor to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) – in 1981. Labour disquiet is widespread, and Deputy Leader Tom Watson has proposed an intra-party grouping of social democrats to stem further defections. The Conservatives have their own party-within-a-party, in the strongly pro-Brexit European Research Group. After many false starts, it forced a vote of no confidence in Theresa May’s leadership of the party in December, which she won by 200 votes to 117. Continue reading →

England remains the only country in the UK to lack its own national parliament, and there is no indication that this is likely to change in the near future. Here, Sir John Curtice discusses the extent to which those who identify as having a distinctive English identity have grown in number, and if this translates into greater support for separate English institutions.

One of the key features of the devolution settlement in the UK is that it has become increasingly asymmetric, as both the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly have gradually gained more powers. In contrast, only relatively minor changes have been introduced in England – (i) changing the procedures of the House of Commons so that laws that only affect England have to have the backing of English MPs as well as the House as a whole and, (ii) introducing in some of England’s major metropolitan areas city regions run by a directly elected mayor and a combined authority but with limited powers. This contrast means that a debate continues to bubble away about the fairness and effectiveness of the way in which England is governed, prompting the recent publication of a book, Governing England, that reports the fruits of a major investigation undertaken by the British Academy into how England might best be governed in future.

One of the seemingly important issues in the debate about the governance of England is the country’s sense of identity. An England that predominantly feels British might be thought to be happy to be governed by UK-wide institutions. But one that feels mostly English might be expected to take a very different view. It has been argued that the sight of devolved institutions elsewhere in the UK has made people in England more aware of their English rather than their British identity and that they now seek to have that identity acknowledged politically. That English identity is becoming politically more important appeared to be confirmed by the well-documented evidence that those who think of themselves as English were more likely than those who regard themselves as British to vote to Leave the EU.

But how many people south of the border claim these days to be English rather than British? Is there any evidence that there has been an increase in English identity? And is there any reason to believe that those who do feel English have become more likely to want their sense of identity reflected in how England is governed? These are some of the questions addressed by me in Governing England.Continue reading →

The current devolution settlement has left England as the only UK country subject to permanent direct rule from Westminster, which has the dual role of governing both the UK and England. In their new book, Akash Paun, Michael Kenny and Iain McLean have been exploring some of the key arguments concerning the status of England within the Union, who speaks for England politically, and the concept of an English national identity.

Governing England, a new volume published today by the British Academy and Oxford University Press, explores whether, why and with what consequences there has been a disentangling of England from Britain in terms of its governance and national identity. The book concludes that the English have grown dissatisfied with their constitution and relationship with the wider world (as reflected in England’s decisive vote in favour of Brexit), and less content for their nationhood to be poured into the larger vessel of Britishness. But England’s national consciousness is fragmented and embryonic – unlike the other UK nations, it has yet to engage in a reflective national conversation about how it wishes to be governed – and, as Brexit unfolds, England is struggling to reshape its relationship with the other UK nations and the wider world without a cohesive national narrative to guide the way.

England, alone among the nations of the UK, has no legislature or executive of its own, and remains one of the most centralised countries in Europe. It is ruled directly from Westminster and Whitehall by a parliament, government and political parties that simultaneously represent the interests of both the UK and England. Correspondingly, at the level of identity, the English have historically displayed a greater propensity than the Scots and Welsh to conflate their own nationhood with a sense of affiliation to Britain and its state. As Robert Hazell noted in 2006, writing for the Constitution Unit on The English Question, ‘in our history and in our institutions the two identities [of English and British] are closely intertwined, and cannot easily be unwoven’.

As a result of devolution to Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, Westminster and Whitehall frequently oversee legislation that applies entirely, or predominantly, to England. But the government and most politicians at Westminster tend to elide these territorial complexities, talking of setting policy or legislating for ‘the nation’ or ‘the country’, whatever the precise territorial application of the announcement in question. Governing England is rarely considered as an enterprise separate from the wider governance of the UK.Continue reading →

Ongoing Constitution Unit research is exploring options for an English Parliament. Two of the most fundamental questions concern what policy powers such a body would have and financial arrangements. Jack Sheldon suggests that an English Parliament would be likely to have policy and fiscal powers resembling those of the Scottish Parliament, and that a new funding formula would be required to cover the costs of devolved services. These developments would have major implications not only for England but also for the other parts of the UK.

Since last autumn Professor Meg Russell and I have been working on a research project exploring the options for an English Parliament. Although there have been various calls over the last 20 years to establish such a body, how might it actually work in practice? Two of the most fundamental questions, which have major implications for other aspects of institutional design, concern what policy powers an English Parliament would have and what kind of financial arrangements would be possible. This blog post focuses on these questions.

What English Parliament supporters have said

English Parliament supporters emphasise restoring equality among the UK’s nations, in light of what they see as the unfairness of present devolution arrangements. It is thus unsurprising that they have often set the powers of the Scottish Parliament as a benchmark. The Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP) state prominently on their website that they campaign for an institution ‘with powers at least as great as those of Scotland’. This demand has been echoed by MPs who are in favour, including David Davis, Frank Field and John Redwood. In the aftermath of the Scottish independence referendum Redwood wrote that ‘As we seek to put into legislation what Gordon Brown called Home Rule for Scotland we must do the same for England’.

To the extent that they have addressed finance, advocates of an English Parliament have focused on criticism of the Barnett Formula, which provides more generous per capita government spending in Scotland than in England. Eddie Bone of the CEP has linked the continued use of the formula to ‘closures of A&E departments and council services across England’. Frank Field has likewise been highly critical of the formula, saying that ‘it is totally unacceptable that the poor in [his] constituency should be less well supported than the poor in Scottish constituencies’. Proponents have said less about what sort of financial arrangements they envisage following an English Parliament’s establishment.

The fiscal powers of English local authorities are extremely limited. In recent years there have been many proposals for significant fiscal devolution to take place, but little progress has been made on this agenda. In this post Mark Sandford argues that there are three fundamental reasons for this: the nature of the UK state, the complexity involved and equity considerations.

The mid-2010s have seen an unprecedented number of proposals for devolution of fiscal powers to local authorities in England. The coalition government’s ‘devolution deal’ policy, together with the substantial fiscal devolution granted to Scotland in the wake of the 2014 independence referendum, have encouraged many stakeholders to believe that English local government is on the cusp of a breakthrough in the balance of revenue-raising power between local and central government (Morrin and Blond 2015; Centre for Cities 2015). Some have produced reports containing substantial proposals for fiscal devolution to English local authorities (Centre for Cities 2015; ICLGF 2015; ICLGFW 2016; London Finance Commission 2017; EEF 2017). Associated concepts such as place-based budgets, raising borrowing caps, commercial councils and local government restructuring have also attracted attention as potential solutions to English local government’s financial challenges.

I suggest that these hopes and plans arise from an over-optimistic reading of the political landscape. Most of the key drivers of the apparent ‘devolutionary turn’ in England are ephemeral and highly dependent on ‘constitutional entrepreneurs’ and windows of opportunity. Developments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are matters of high politics. English devolution deals and the retention of business rates by local authorities were largely driven by former Chancellor George Osborne. Inertia and Brexit will drag hugely on all policy innovations in the 2017–22 parliament. The confusion of local administrative boundaries, public bodies and contested local identities have long frustrated strategic approaches to local governance in England.

But this type of political headwind is priced in by commentators. There are three more fundamental reasons why fiscal devolution in England was always likely to face insurmountable obstacles, which relate to the nature of the UK state, the complexity of the change implied, and to local equity. These have been largely lost in the warm glow of consensual causes such as inclusive growth and regional prosperity. They run beneath the day-to-day debate on policy solutions, and offer a more cultural account of the critical relationships at issue.

In 2015, the Conservative government implemented ‘English votes for English laws’ (or EVEL) in the House of Commons as a way of responding to the ‘English question’. Labour, by contrast, has had relatively little to say in this area – but were the party to form a government in the near future, it would be required to take some tough decisions. In this post, Michael Kenny assesses the possible routes forward for how Labour might respond to EVEL, in particular, and broader questions about English governance and devolution across the UK.

Brexit and its potential implications saturate British politics. But attention has lately shifted away from some of the complex constitutional questions which were aired in the days and months before the UK’s negotiations with the EU began. These include the thorny issue of how the UK government will handle the very different perspectives on Brexit which are held by the governments of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales – which will move back to the foreground when the government formally requests the consent of the Scottish and Welsh parliaments for the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill currently passing through the Westminster parliament. Whether Labour in Wales and Scotland opt to oppose Brexit will be of particular importance in political terms.

A related, but distinct, issue which all of the main parties will have to consider soon is how those parts of the complex body of coming legislation which affect England in distinct ways, will fare. And this in a context where it is still taken as given, in Westminster at least, that the UK government can represent the interests of the entire UK and England at the same time, even when the current administration depends for its survival upon a small party that is based in Northern Ireland only.

The previous Conservative government introduced a complex and convoluted system – known as ‘English Votes for English Laws’ (or EVEL) – to handle such legislation, and sought to make political capital out of its ability to answer the English question – one of the great Cinderella issues of British politics.

Whether these opaque rules will be enough to deal with the increasingly political character of English national identity is a moot point. But in EVEL and the patchwork model of metro mayors and newly created combined authorities it has created, the government at least has something to say on the subject of English devolution (even if what Theresa May herself thinks about these changes remains a well-kept secret).

Labour, in contrast, seems to have little to say in this area – aside from promising a constitutional convention which feels like a fig leaf, rather than a signal of intent.

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The Constitution Unit in the Department of Political Science at University College London is the UK’s leading research body on constitutional change.

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